Spring Time Book Tag

Today I'm joining my doughter Gaia and her friend Agnese in another book tag. So let's get started....

1) Spring Sun: The Days are getting longer and the sun is starting to shine – A book that fill you with hope.

Shane's Claiborne ''The irrisestible revolution'' . It's a book that fills me with hope in the human kind,if we could just love one another and consider each others brothers and sisters the world would be a much more beautiful and enjoyble place to be.

 2) Crocuses & Tulips: Spring flowers are starting to sprout everywhere – Name an author or series you just discovered that you want to start or read more from.

This is hard for me, living in a foreign country I hardly ever come across new things since I'm pretty much isolated here. So probably I will name an author I've been follwing for quite some time now, Rachel Devenish Ford ( check her blog, it's precious ). She is such a sweet sould and very talented artist and writer.

  3) A cool breeze: the days are getting warmer but are still nice and cool – Name a character that was like a breath of fresh air

I'm not sure if it fits because the 'character' exist in real life, but I loved Elizabeth Gilbert as she is in Eat,Pray,Love. Just like spring, in her book Elisabeth is about to begin her life again and she makes it in a brave and wonderful way.

  4) Blossoming trees: All trees are bursting with the spring color - Show some book covers that remind you of spring

(I'm sorry for the very low quality picture, check the out in the web for a proper view ... )

Tasha Tudor's Garden

I love Tasha's illustrations and gardening skills. This cover is so full of life !

'Drawn To Nature' is one of the many Clare Walker Leslie book that I own.

 

 Ann Woskamp 'One thousend gifts'

A must read for whoever wants to start a gratitude habit, and the cover is lovely.

 5) T-shirts & Shorts: With warmer weather comes cooler clothing - What is your favorite shortest book ?

 

Maybe 'Everyday Sacred' by Sue Bender. From time to time I love to re-read it and always find inspiration.

 

 
6) Spring is the time for new beginnings: What series or series’ are you hoping to start this year?

 

This is hard, as I said I don't have a clue about what's going on on planet earth lol, but somehow I came across few authors lately so I can't name a series I want to start but at least one author: Emily St.John Mandel . I read about her 'Station Eleven' and now I really want to read it, and why not, maybe her other books as well.

So here's my tag, hopefully you'll get some inspiration from me or my 'partners in crime'. If you want to tag along please leave a comment with a link to your tag :)

Have a lovely day !

Nepal

We moved here in Finland 3 years and half ago. After few months my husband found his first job, a painting job in a restaurant in town. He was working with a nepalese man. We got to know him rather well in the few weeks they worked together and his story was really uplifting, knowing that such goodhearted people do exist give big hope for the humanity.
He run a B&B in Nepal and was also a guide. He told us he was rather well off for Nepalese standards so every years in the last 10 years or so he has been spending 2-3 months up in the mountains building schools, and watering systems, and buying supplies and delivering them in the poorest villages.
He was here in Finland to rise money for helping more people. Beside the painting job, he was selling children's drawings and we bought one that is very dear to us. He also had these prayers flags, which i love, but they were all sold. He promised to send us one from Nepal as soon as he could afford the shipping. I couldn't tell him goodbye because I gave birth to James the day before his departure. Months went by and one morning ( one of those bad morning filled of bad moods in which everybody seems to fight with anybody else ) we heard a knock on the door. As we opened there was this finnish guy standing tall on our steps '' Hello, I'm just back from Nepal, Bahdra send you this'' and he handed us two nepalese prayer flag buntings. We couldn't believe it. We were so speechless that we not even invited the guy in. Those flags are hanging in our kitchen here in Finland and in our caravan, to follow us everywhere and remind us about love and friendship.
When yesterday I heard about the terrible earthquake in Nepal I couldn't help but thinking to our friend over there, his family his children. We lost contact with him so there's no way to know how he's doing. The only thing I can do now is sending prayers for him and his people and his beautiful country.

Spring and fairies

Hello world ! Wow it has been a long silence it feels almost strange to be back here on my apple tree posting. Very busy days in a rather demanding family with a lot of work to get ready for summer's markets and events in which hopefully I will sell some of my creations. My creativity has the tendency to roam very wide in very different fields, so I have busied myself with jewelry, mixed media, crocheting, painting\drawing and photography. Little by little I will show here some of my things and maybe I might consider to start selling also online (maybe on Etsy ? I need to check it out, prices and stuff ... ).
So as the title says it seems that spring is slowly showing up here in Finland too. It is still quite cold ( only we reached +9C only after hours in the sun - a cold sun it seems ) but we already have very long days with the sun rising around 6 am and setting past 8 pm so lovely ! I've always been an early bird, but the winter darkness basically switches me off and that is something that I really dislike, but the light of spring\summer !! It's my thing totally, I also welcomed spring with a two weeks detox\cleanse with no gluten, dairies, meat and filled with raw vegetables and fruit and boiled eggs. It's not much far away from the way I usually eat, but in normal 'days' I enjoy some cheese or latte and ocasionally some chicken meat. During my detox I also started every day with meditation and prayers and Bible reading, which usually helps me a lot to go through the day. Well this depends a lot on James, if he wakes up earlier I usually have to give up meditation or Bible reading, but accepting this season of my life I'm sure it's a big step in the direction of mindfulness and awareness and acceptance of the will of God.
Anyways, as I said today we had some sun, so with the precious help of two of my children I went outside to take some pictures. Well .... you won't believe what I found ! ...our garden was filled with fairies ....
(spoiler alert : it's part of a nice little project I'm carrying on ... ) so .... welcome in my garden  !

... As I was getting ready to shot some pics of the wild crocuses I realized that little friends had gathered around the flowers as well. I'm sure the fairies have missed flowers and sun as much as I did during the winter. I wonder where do they hide in the dark and cold months ...

 ... And look ! I'm not the only one who is excited about rhubarb season .... this little one is probably rhubarb fairy !!

Hopefully you're life have been filled with sun and joy and a little kind of magic as well.
Have a great week !

Finally back

Oh my oh my ! It has been one really crazy week the past one ! And my poor cyber-home has been neglected and hardly ever checked. Let's go back to sunday the 29th of march. It has been a very exciting day, because Gaia had a dance show performing her own coreography. She has been practicing for weeks without showing us a single move, so we were all very thrilled for her performance ... and it has been great ! People cheered and shouted and complimented her, and they came to me to tell me how beautiful was her coreography and I had to fight with myself to keep those tears (of joy and pride ) to fall ... she has been incredible and she is MY sweet child, my my and only my ! :)

 

she is starting ...

 

Compliments from the director of the dance school

The same day we had the pleasure to meet a new friend, an incredible american boy whose dream is to sing and make movies, and that lives here in Loviisa, came over to join Gaia and her friend Moa during their radio program Back and Forth. Of course we didn't miss the chance to make a new friend, so he's been spending quite a lot of time here with us ....

Fabio, Gaia, Jimmy and Wolf

After an early spring, the beginning of last week had also a quite dreadful surprise for us ...

..... SNOW....

You know, we're rather snow lover, I mean really, we think snow is such a magical gift ... but ...

but not at the end of march !! Please !!!!

But just for your information, in case you might be interested, it seems that spring is slowly finding its way back ... (today +10 !!!!!!! )

And finally we arrived at thursday, the 1st of april, april fool's day or Gaia's BIRTHDAY !

My sweet wonderful talented doughter turned 15 !! I can't believe, the little newborn who made a mother of me, is fifteen !!! I can see a wonderful future unfolding in front of her !

But the very same night James got a very bad flu, during the night the temp arrive at 39C and he stopped sleeping. He woke up around one in the night and simple styed awake for 3 days and nights, being absolutely miserable during the day, but still not sleeping at all at night. At some point I seriously thought he would go on like this forever, but when I was on the verge of despair he finally got better and started sleeping normally again. 

And on sunday we celebrated Ester, since Jimmy was still quite sick I couldn't really take care of decorations and food as I usually do, but it turned out nice anyways ...

Yummi !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Easter day was spent eating, joking and going crazy with our loombands !!!!

It is good to be back.

It is good to be healthy.

It is good to be with family and friends.

It is good to be in spring.

God bless you !